Cookbooks To Savor

Nigella Lawson: FeastWhat cooking, especially for family and loved-ones is all about.

Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee: Eating KoreanI would place this cookbook in my top 10 of all time. The recipes are delicious and each section is packed with the best of Korean home cooking. The stories are wonderful, too. Highly recommend.

Irma S. Rombauer: The Joy of Cooking (not the "All New", the old school one) I don't so much like this for main dish and salad recipes as for baked goods, sauces, and jams. I have my mother's copy, and when I was about 12, my favorite thing to do was to make tea sandwiches from this cookbook. Every weekend I'd make a couple of different kinds until I worked my way through all the spreads and fillings. A good basic cookbook.

Homemade Hot Sauce

Some friends invited us over for brunch this morning and they gave us some serrano and habanero peppers from their garden to take home.

hot as a mutha...seriously.

I'm a little obsessed with hot sauces. It's the most plentiful condiment in my refrigerator. Once I saw those peppers, I knew they were destined to become hot sauce.

If you have peppers, garlic, and vinegar on hand you can make your own hot sauce. It's pretty hard to make a bad one. Try it and you'll find you can whip something up that tastes far superior to anything store-bought.

CITYMAMA'S FIERY HOT SAUCE

Wear gloves when de-seeding the peppers. For a thicker sauce, reduce amount of water and vinegar by half.

Ingredients:

a scant 2 cups of red serrano chilis, halved and seeded

1/4 to 1/2 (depending on how hot you want it) of a habanero pepper, seeded

1 large carrot, peeled and diced (about a cup)

5 cloves of garlic

a little olive oil

3/4 cup water

1 cup vinegar (white or cider)

juice of 1 lime

a pinch of sugar

salt to taste (at least a teaspoon)

Cook peppers, carrots, and garlic in a little olive oil over low heat until softened, about 10 minutes. Turn heat up to high and add water, vinegar, and lime juice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-high, and simmer for five minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let cool. Taste for salt.

Put mixture into a blender and process until very well blended. The mixture will be slightly chunky, but liquidy. For a more refined sauce, strain. If you're not fancy (and I'm not) pour unstrained hot sauce into a clean bottle (empty vinegar bottles work great for this) and store in fridge. Makes about 2 cups.

Use as you would Tabasco sauce. It's yummy on eggs, grilled meats, with Mexican food, or in Bloody Caesars.

this kind of topic lends itself to a good review, because when it comes to hot things can be interpreted in many ways, sometimes comic, sometimes seriously, in order to thank them for sharing the information!

Cooking Gear To Spice Things Up

All-Clad cookwareI use the stainless line. I love it because you can put it in the dishwasher. If you like to cook it is sooo worth it to have quality pots and pans. I recommend buying a set on sale and then filling in extras as you need them. (Watch for sales and specials.)

Cast Iron SkilletPlease get rid of all your teflon-coated non-stick plans and get a cast iron skillet. I use mine for searing meat, poultry, and fish and then finishing off in the oven. In fact, get two cast iron skillets—one large enough to hold two ribeyes and a smaller, fried-egg-sized one for making...well...eggs.

Food ProcessorQuickly slice/shred veggies and cheese, make hummus or other spreads in a snap, and make pie crust without making a mess.

Global KnivesI am partial to the 18 incher. Yep, I like big knives and I cannot lie. If you like to cook (or even if you don't) you deserve to have good knives. At least one.

Instant Hot Water DispenserIf you can't afford to have one built-in, this is a great alternative. It's nice to have boiling water at the push of a button to make tea, instant miso soup, or morning oatmeal for the kidlets.

Microplane Grater/ZesterUse this to grate citrus zest, nutmeg, and cheese. You could get a coarser one, but you don't need to. I have one and I use it for everything.

SilpatSilpat is a silicone mat used for baking. They come in various sizes. Items will not stick to it. It is a must for any home baker.

Stick or Immersion BlenderIt doesn't have to be fancy, but try and get the highest HP you can afford. I use my stick blender (+ attachments) for making salad dressing (weekly), pureeing soups, making babyfood, and whipping cream.